Lloyd's List: The Shipping Podcast

In a world rife with cascading crises – macro-economic fragmentation, retreating development, multilateralism under attack and of course the defining challenge of the age - climate change – maritime trade serves as a stabilizing anchor, holding fast against the turbulent currents of disruption. But it is changing. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shifted trade lanes – in terms of grain obviously, but...

TWO years ago Federal Maritime Commission chairman Daniel Maffei sat in front of the Lloyd’s List microphone and bluntly told the container carriers to buck up their public relations. They needed to do a better job of explaining the economics of container shipping and the industry’s essential role in supporting commerce, was his basic beef. Well, a lot has happened since then so when Maffei was in...

A LLOYD’S LIST SPONSORED PODCAST LNG is a fossil fuel: the groundswell of opinion says it’s the answer to the wrong question. But some nevertheless believe it has significant advantages over alternative fuels and it is a useful steppingstone to the next level. In this podcast, RINA technical director Antonios Trakakis, who is responsible for leading maritime sustainability initiatives at the Itali...

AS anybody looking to renew a fixed-rate mortgage right now will tell you, these are tough times for those seeking to borrow money. The decade and more in which the outlook for interest rates were “lower for longer”, as central bankers sought to encourage economic activity in the wake of the global financial crisis, are just a memory. The new enemy is inflation, which has jumped dramatically in th...

The International Union of Marine Insurance conference is the annual health check for the shipping industry’s risk cover and as such offers an important, if not at time impenetrably complex view of the sector as a whole. This week’s podcast offers up a clear explanation of everything you need to know about marine insurance from the people who understand it best. Consider this week’s edition your b...

Shipping does like to talk. And this week we have talked our way through sanctions, geo-political risk, diversity, digitalization and of course the big green elephant in the room at every event – decarbonisation. So as London International Shipping Week puts the champagne flutes in the dishwasher and sweeps up the last crumbs of canapes from the floor, the Lloyd’s List team have gathered around th...

Shipping’s decarbonization dialogue is starting to sound a little schizophrenic. For the first half of the year all we heard was that the IMO was not going far or fast enough and everyone was lobbying for a 1.5 degree alignment in terms of the 2050 decarbonisation targets with some stringent 2030 and 2040 waypoints. We didn’t quite get there, but we weren’t far off. So was that enough to catalyse...

Forecasts are difficult, especially about the future. But shipping’s focus for a while now has been squarely on 2050 when, let’s face it, the majority of those making bold pledges about the industry’s transformation are not going to be around to observe the accuracy of their optimism. Setting out what’s achievable by 2030 is more difficult, arguably impossible. Reports setting out the likelihood o...

EIGHTEEN months in, it’s perhaps not a shocker to hear that the shipping industry is still struggling with the complexities of the ever-evolving sanctions compliance regime they find themselves navigating. But the geopolitical realities of the situation that lies ahead are now starting to hit home. Shipping is trading in an increasingly bi-polar political environment and while no risk analyst wort...

It seems we find ourselves in an era of “cascading crises”. The de-risked, de-coupled, low growth, fractious trading environment that the industry is navigating today is laden with uncertainty. China’s growth engine is sputtering. The consequences of sanctions and regional bloc economics is creating a bi-polar political and trading environment and inflation is starting to bite. And then there’s th...

THE world economy is slowing down. Last month China reported that its economy grew by a mere 0.8% in the second quarter compared with the prior three months. The much anticipated post Covid pick up has seen the Middle Kingdom return with a whimper rather than the hoped for roar after the government finally abandoned its “zero-covid” policy in December. Global manufacturing has suffered as consumer...

THIS IS A SPONSORED PODCAST IN ASSOCIATION WITH EAGLESTAR In this podast, Eaglestar managing director Capt Peter Liew discusses how to future-proof the ship manager at a time of change, and how to position the business to be competitive. For most of its life, Eaglestar was the in-house manager for Malaysia’s MISC. Now fully independent, it has found new opportunities for business in the world of s...

The immediate disruptions of the pandemic may have eased, but has the industry learned sufficient lessons to prevent the same chaos next time around? Shippers need to plan ahead for both known and unknown disruptions according to the panel of experts we gathered for this week’s edition of the podcast. Discussing how to build supply chain resilience with Lloyd’s List’s very own containers editor Ja...

We now know what shipping needs to do by 2050. We have a pretty good idea of what 2040 and even 2030 looks like on paper. But after the big political showdown in the IMO earlier this month we’re now looking at the difficult detail of what follows. This is something of a recurring theme for the Lloyd’s List podcast, so as regular listeners will well understand we’re not talking about a shipping iss...

Moin Ahmed is one of two candidates nominated for the position of secretary general with a seafaring background.(The other candidate is from Türkiye). After 10 years at sea Ahmed came ashore to work at Bangladesh’s national shipping line, but his journey to the International Maritime Organisation began when he was posted to the UK as the company’s European regional representative more than 25 year...

Few people in shipping can claim to be a best-selling author but the book published in 1985 by Dominica’s candidate, Dr Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, The Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Sea, is a text that thousands in international maritime law will be familiar with. Doumbia-Henry concluded her eight-year term as president of Sweden’s World Maritime University last month, the latest post in a trailblaz...

Suat Hayri Aka, Turkiye’s candidate for the secretary general’s position at the International Maritime Organization, has probably the most diverse curriculum vitae of all seven candidates standing for election on Tuesday. He began his career as a deck officer, and after time at sea went ashore to work in shipmangement and other maritime businesses. In addition to seafaring and commercial experienc...

Well-known Zhang Xiajojie has run a low-key public campaign for the position of secretary general but the former head of delegation for China at the International Maritime Organisation is confident he is in with a decent chance. He began his career in the Ministry of Transport in 1994 and has travelled as part of the Chinese IMO delegation to London for 30 years, he told Lloyd’s List. In 2017 he w...

From a little girl in rural Kenya who listened to the sounds of the sea from cowrie shells to candidate for the top job at the International Maritime Organisation – Nancy Karigitu’s long maritime voyage may end with her becoming the first African and first woman secretary general in its 70-year history if she is elected next Tuesday. Karigitu was among the first of the seven candidates to flag her...

MINNA Kivimäki is the second candidate for the position of secretary general of International Maritime Organization featured in the Lloyd’s List podcast ahead of voting next Tuesday for the top diplomatic job in shipping. The four-year appointment begins on January 1, with the winner to succeed the incumbent over the past eight years, South Korea’s Kitack Lim. Lloyd’s List has interviewed all the...

THE International Maritime Organisation votes next Tuesday to replace its secretary general and seven countries are fielding candidates for the top diplomatic job in shipping. The four-year appointment begins on January 1, with the winner to succeed incumbent over the past eight years, South Korea’s Kitack Lim. Bangladesh (Moin Uddin Ahmed), China (Zhang Xiajojie), Dominica (Dr Cleopatra Doumbia-H...

The Lloyd’s List traditional mid-year health check on shipping’s core sectors highlighted a few underlying conditions in box and bulk but found tankers feeling much better after a period of prolonged depression. Join our resident specialists for a thorough examination of all that ails the maritime markets this week. Our traditional mid-year health check on shipping’s core sectors has flagged a few...

The shipping industry can decarbonize. If the political stars align and the right demand signals can be emitted, even the most ambitious zero carbon scenarios are no longer limited by the technology. Or commercial readiness of zero-carbon fuels, or infrastructure or yards. At least they are according to the slew of papers and studies being pumped out as the world’s governments sit down next week t...

We tend to talk a lot about what the future of shipping will look like in 2050. What the fuels will be, what the ships need to do and how trade lanes and business models are going to need to rapidly adapt. But we don’t talk enough about the people at the heart of this revolution - the seafarers. Without a skilled, agile and well-trained work force, the clean energy transformation of shipping will...

The Lloyd’s List Podcast moves to Japan this week, where MOL chairman Junichiro Ikeda shares his insights about what he considers to be biggest risks facing shipping and why MOL is looking to transform into a social infrastructure company Mitsui OSK Lines chairman Junichiro Ikeda has worked at the Japanese shipping giant for more than 40 years and has witnessed numerous testing periods in the ship...